Enhanced Vision
by DigitalSocrates
Summary: Months after the conflict with Von Bolt in Omega Land, Sonja of Yellow Comet finds that the Allied Nations are not doing enough to safeguard against future threats to the stability of Wars World. Lash encourages her to fix that.
1. Administrative Differences

_This story is set in Wars World of Advance Wars, a month after the events of Dual Strike, where Van Bolt and his Bolt Guard used a giant crystal structure called a Black Obelisk to suck the energy from Wars World to use for his own selfish needs._

[Author's Note: It's been awhile since I played the older games, so a few of the details may be off. Specifically I can't recall how much damage was done to Yellow Comet during the events of the second game. Descriptions on the wiki are slim, and I'm in the midst of replaying the older games now, but this story is bugging me too much to write to hold off on trying to get it down. If you spot any inaccuracies, feel free to point them out.]

* * *

The sun rising through the mountains cast a red and and orange tinge to the valley below the mountain palace. An elaborate shrine sat on a narrow peninsual in the middle of a crystal lake, it's silver waters calm, but for the flickering shadows dancing over it, cast by the forests of the opposite mountain. Meadows of jasmine and gardens of Cherry Blossoms surrounded it, only a few miles from the sprawling houses and farms of the city. A beautiful landscape were it not for the hollow ruined shell of the towering Black Cannon in the center of it.

"Commander?"

Sonja snapped away from the window and back into her office. She was dressed in a green form-fitting military tunic and knee-length skirt, her black hair tied back in a braided ponytail that fell halfway down her back. Her rigid posture, hands clasped behind her back, gave a statuesque air of authority that transcended her young age.

"Oh, right, Lieutenant, go on." The officer looked more concerned than annoyed, as Sonja was not the type to daydream during a briefing. It was becoming a habit of late, however. A habit that needed addressing if she was to stay one of Yellow Comet's top COs... and eventually become its' empress.

"Our reports from Omega Land indicate that the wastelands created by the Black Obelisk have almost fully recovered."

"That's good news." She absently stared back out the balcony window in the direction of Omega Land, although the continent was too distant to see, even from the Mountain Palace's high vantage point. The resolution of the war with Von Bolt remained mostly unsolved. How was the Black Obelisk built? Were there more? Were Von Bolt and the Black Hole CO Hawke truly killed? Where had Von Bolt's entourage, the 'Bolt Guard,' disappeared to? And then there was the question of the land itself: had the land recovered naturally, or did it absorb the stolen energy released from Von Bolt's destroyed chair? Other answers existed, each more farfetched than the last. Jake's favorite theory so far had been that Hawke found a way to rejuvenate the land.

_Ugh, Jake._ The weight Sonja put on the newest Orange Star CO's theories was... low. Hawke had proven himself as a challenging foe, but more importantly he had proven himself a merciless one. Black Hole and it's CO's were responsible for thousands of lost lives, millions of destroyed homes. To Jake, an alliance of convenience necessitated by Von Bolt's betrayal absolved them of all of it. The idea that they should be given a pat on the back and enlisted into the Allied Nations was clinical insanity! She had said as much during Lash's tribunal. A tribunal that would not have happened, she was fairly sure, had General Olaf not been so vocal to decry Lash's personal destruction of his hometown. Yet Jake seemed to possess a truly remarkable ability to evoke psychosis in his fellow CO's. Sonja could only surmise that it centered on his unusual dialect. Subliminal messages, perhaps. Something to look into later.

But this was no time for idle musings. "I'm more concerned with how rebuilding efforts go locally, Lieutenant." Yellow Comet had been relatively untouched in the war with Von Bolt, but it was still feeling the effects of Sturm's prior invasion.

"Yes, Commander." He flipped through half the document before he got to Yellow Comet news. The turnover rate for her officers was higher than any other CO in the nation, so the few that remained were well aware of how... _comprehensive_... Sonja required her reports to be.

"Reconstruction goes fairly smoothly, the biggest bottleneck being how quickly we can remove the Black Pipes littering the landscape."

"What?" She moved over to her desk where there were several documents and maps layed out and slipped on a pair of thin-rimmed reading glasses. Several locations were marked red, indicating Black Pipe warehouse locations. She had ordered their commission specifically to streamline rebuilding efforts. "Has there been a problem moving them to the warehouses?"

"Oh, were you not informed, Commander?" He suddenly seemed to be anxious, sweat visibly beading on his brow.

"Informed of _what_?" Sonja did not like being the last one to hear about something, as her heated glare clearly illustrated.

"Emperor Kanbei ordered all Black Pipes to be dumped into the sea, rather than stored in the warehouses."

The Lieutenant took his leave of Sonja's office as expeditiously as one can while being pelted with everything not nailed down to the floor.

* * *

"...and then WHAM! The room shakes and only LIGHTNING GRIMM is still standing in that circle! Long story short, I was an Honorary Wars World Heavyweight Sumo Champion for a two months!"

"Lightning Grimm... who is that?"

"Who's Lightning...?" The circle-rimmed sunglasses Grimm always wore were far too tiny to mask the look of momentary confusion that set upon his brow as he looked upon his drinking partner. After a pause, he assaults the room with a deafening, "HAH! Hahahaha! Almost got me there, Sensei!"

Grimm gives Sensei a pat on the back so forceful it nearly knocks the goggles off the elderly Yellow Comet CO's face, then downs the remaining half of a huge bottle of sake. Sensei's only response is a confused smile as he repositions his leather headgear.

"Father?"

The pair turn from the bar, just catching a view of Sonja walking past the bar doorway. Gone was the air of collectedness, replaced by the temperament of a teenage girl who had just been stood up at the prom. She stopped long enough to peek into the room, her irritation so thick it had congealed into choking fumes that followed her down the hall. She saw the pair at the bar and demanded, "Have you seen my father?"

"Calm down there, Hummingbird, what's got you all riled up?" When Sonja was louder than him, Grimm knew something was amiss.

"Not now, Grimm." Her expression left no indication that she could be appeased. "Sensei, do you know where Emperor Kanbei is?"

"Kanbei... Kanbei..." Sensei scratched his chin, deep in thought. "Oh! That's right, I left him in the yard, cleaning up after marksmanship practice."

Her angered irritation gave way to a more concerned, frustrated irritation. Irritation was an art form to Sonja - as complex as any painting, with multiple shades of color and varying techniques. "Sensei, my father hasn't trained under you for years. In fact, you haven't personally trained _any_Yellow Comet soldiers for years."

"Oh, right... that means he's in..." he settled back into thought.

After a moment of quiet, Sonja asked again impatiently, "Sensei?"

"Huh? Oh, hello, Sonja. Did you need something?"

With an exasperated sigh, she turned and left the doorway, headed back down the hall. Loud cries of "Father!" reared up and diminished as she moved away. Grimm sat in his chair, barely suppressing a cackle.

"Haha! You old dog, that was some show you put on there!"

"Show? What kind of show? I like the ones where they dance around in wild costumes and swing swords."

Grimm shook his head, his laughter only getting deeper. He lifted up the huge empty bottle and waved it over the bar. "Bartender! Bring me another!"

* * *

Even though it was unlikely that her father was the one cleaning up, the Training Yard was a likely place to find him regardless. From just outside the palace, she could see that there was some kind of military rally occurring, gathered around a single speaker. As she approached the yard, it became clear that the booming voice did indeed belong to her father the emperor. She spared a single moment to mentally congratulate herself.

"Steel! Granite! Yellow Comet Soldiers! What do these all have in common?"

"THEY DO NOT YIELD!" responded an ocean of of soldiers, in dozens of square formations, arrayed before a single man, standing atop a tank painted a blinding yellow. Emperor Kanbei was the embodiment of the samurai, standing tall, his black cape billowing in the wind, somehow making the same garish yellow of his tunic inspiring instead of unsightly. He was the human incarnation of Yellow Comet - infinitely wise, infinitely pure - it made Sonja suddenly question whether his decision regarding the Black Pipes had been right, and that perhaps _she_ was wrong.

And then she noticed that the scabbard at his hip was empty. He had forgotten his sword again.

As hotheaded as she was at the moment, she wasn't about to embarrass her father in front of the city's entire standing army. Frankly, nothing about shouting up at a man standing on a tank could end well. Instead she waited several minutes at the edge of the yard until Kanbei finally concluded the rally, giving command to a nearby colonel. She caught up to him as he started back towards the palace flanked by several other officers.

"Father, I need to speak to you." She was still incensed, but all the delays had at least helped her regain her countenance.

"Sonja!" She managed only a feeble 'eep!' before she was engulfed in a giant bear-hug. To say that she didn't expect it would be a lie, but her father's outrageous displays of affection were impossible to prepare for. He released her after a few moments of feeble struggling, her face flushed with embarrassment as she tried to straighten her tunic. The other officers, beacons of respect and propriety, did not so much as even crack a smile, something Sonja was infinitely grateful for... each time this happened.

"Father, please, I have some domestic matters to speak with you about."

Kanbei's face soured somewhat, as it usually did when she tried to speak to him about politics and administration. He waved. "You are my daughter, and are more than capable of handling such responsibilities on your own."

"I'm _very_ glad to hear that, father," Irritation with a touch of sarcasm for a lighter, fluffier texture. "That is, that you trust me so much that you wouldn't overrule one of my orders without at least discussing it with me first."

"And I am glad that you are glad," he responded with a self-satisfied nod. He started walking again, but Sonja grabbed his shoulder.

"No, father, you did that! You told the reconstruction committees to dump the Black Pipes in the ocean!" The best well-laid, carefully constructed conversations were destroyed when the other person had no concept of subtlety.

Kanbei finally halted his trek back to the palace. "The ocean, yes," he nodded sagaciously. "The best place to dispose of those terrible Black Hole pipes."

"_Father_, there are a _number_ of reasons to store them rather than dump them in the ocean - logistical, utility, not the least of which scientific. We still don't know what they're made of, why they're indestructible, why they disrupt aircraft that try to fly over them..." This line of argument never worked with her father, but she would be regret it if she didn't at least try.

Unsurprisingly, he merely waved her concerns off. He literally waved. "This is Yellow Comet! We do not put trust in mysterious foreign technologies. Besides, they reject the paint."

"Father, are we really abandoning an opportunity to revolutionize this empire's infrastructure because the technology isn't _yellow?_"

"Sonja_..._" he shook his head in disappointment. It was his turn to lecture. "This land's name is not arbitrary! What is the first thing you learned in school?"

Sonja sighed, realizing that this conversation was headed in a direction she simply couldn't argue out of. "Father, I'm not going to start reciting ritual..."

"_Sonja!_" Kanbei was prepared to delve straight into a long tirade when he recalled the other officers present. He stood up rigidly, turning to the handful of men and giving a stare that left nothing unclear about their dismissal. After mutual bows from both sides they departed, Kanbei keeping his gaze locked for several long moments after their departure. Sonja, in the meantime, stood outside of his gaze, her nerves frayed in a way she had not experienced in months.

"Sonja." When he turned around, the momentary flash of anger had given way to fatherly concern. "You treat ritual as if it was a punishment, as an ancient tradition that is out of place in a modern Yellow Comet."

"Father..." Sonja pleaded, trying to tell him that he was overreacting.

"No interrupting. It is more than the color, but the color is important. This Empire's color is of the Sun! The color reflected in our lakes, seen through our windows, reflected in our eyes, shining in all of our souls. By making our forces, our homes yellow, we show what we have built. What _we _have built. These Black Pipes were not built by our hands, were not placed by our hands. If they stay, what do _they_ symbolize?"

Sonja found herself temporarily without anything to say. The line of Kanbei's mouth tightened and he walked a few paces past Sonja, leaving her a view of his back. She could feel some irritation building again, and was about to make a pointed comment about the overuse of dramatic pauses and dynamic poses when his shoulders slumped. He released a drawn-out sigh and turned back to her, his face a mix of emotions. "I forgot my sword."

A tidal wave of relief, affection and raw amusement gripped her, and she laughed aloud at the same time tears began welling up in her eyes. She didn't even notice herself clearing the distance between the two, burying her face in his shoulder. They stood there for at least a minute, Kanbei's arms wrapped around her, stroking the length of her hair, before he spoke.

"I was never a smart man." Kanbei began. Sonja tried to voice some objection but he silenced her with a finger to her lips. "Fortunately you take after your mother."

Sonja pulled back far enough just to see the smile that crossed her father's face - the same pained smile he displayed whenever thinking of her mother.

"And it's because of that you will make a much better CO, and a much better ruler than I. But you cannot let this -" he gave her head a good shake, "think it is more important than this -" he put his palm on the center of her chest. He gave her a small hug before letting her go. He took a moment to wipe away the tears from her left cheek. The Emperor of Yellow Comet cannot betray weakness, so when he turned away from her, it was not because similar tears were welling up in his own eyes, but because he had important business to take care of. At least that's what he would have said if pressed. Sonja knew better.

"Tomorrow I am holding a conference for all my advisors," he announced without looking back, increasing his pace towards the palace. "You'll be there, yes?"

"Of course, father," she said, still reeling from the unexpectedly emotional encounter.

"We will discuss, _perhaps_, keeping some of these pipes for research. And that is all on this subject."

She nodded weakly, mumbling a 'yes' when she realized he wasn't looking at her. As a child, Sonja had been spared no luxury, and was frequently inundated in attention and presents. But this small compromise was one of the greatest gifts he'd ever given her.


	2. Land of Snow

No place, Sonja decided miserably, had any right to be this cold.

Sonja sat in the backseat of a speeding jeep, wrapped up in so many furs and blankets that her normally lithe silhouette was unrecognizable. She peeked through slitted windows at the grey overcast sky and sighed. Light snow continued to sprinkle down, renewing the layers of white on the endless expanse of pine that clothed the landscape and blurred vision beyond a fraction of a mile. The weather had been this way since her and her driver had arrived on Blue Moon, and she was convinced that it would stay this way forever.

_An empty wasteland_

_Hungry for human spirit_

_And never sated_

She reflected how low she'd been brought - composing poetry about her horrid existence. Briefly Sonja found herself fantasizing that Black Hole had succeeded in destroying it. Very briefly.

During the first hours of the drive, Sonja had attempted to go over her unread reports. Attempting to read while her jeep cruised over slick, neglected roads had not been one of her better ideas. She was still fighting off the occasional pang of nausea, but at least the smell had worn away some.

Attempting to catch up on her oft-neglected sleep also proved futile.

So it was a welcome break to the monotony when her jeep started slowing. She struggled out of the bulk of her insulation (still leaving on enough scarves and padded jackets to confuse her with an Eskimo), she squeezed into the front passenger side seat. There seemed to be a road block of some sort up ahead - the speckled blue camouflage of Blue Moon was visible on several military vehicles, and there was someone approaching them on foot.

"Wait here," Sonja informed her driver once the jeep had come to a complete stop. She shoved open the door, and an assaulting wind made her rethink it. Bearing the biting cold, she stepped out into several inches of mulchy snow. Distracted by the realization that she had not packed waterproof boots, she didn't notice the arrival of the Blue Moon Officer. She jumped when she addressed in a small, shaky voice.

"A...apologies for the inconvenience ma'am, but this road is closed until... um... well, for awhile."

After regaining the momentary loss of composure, she realized that she recognized the voice. "Colin?"

"Oh!" he exclaimed, recognizing her once she pulled down her hood - which she then promptly replaced. "I didn't recognize you, Commander Sonja! Well, I guess I should have, Yellow Comet recon and all..." Sonja was not particularly tall, but Colin still managed to stand at least a foot shorter than her. She noticed that the Blue Comet CO still had a habit of lowering his eyes, even in the presence of equals.

"It's no problem, Colin. Few are aware of my presence in Blue Moon - and you haven't seen me dressed up like a _seal _before." He still seemed a bit nervous, even after her attempt to calm his nerves. She tried a different angle. "Is your sister here?"

"Sasha?" He asked, suddenly quite alert. Being reminded of his sister seemed to both light him up _and_ heighten his nervousness. It was a relationship that Sonja could certainly relate to. "She's actually back in Omega Land, leading the repair efforts in Blue Moon's territories. It's probably better that I didn't stay - I'd probably just mess stuff up."

"I'm sure Commander Olaf just needed your expertise in your homeland, Colin," Sonja comforted. "So what's this road block about?"

"Oh!" he exclaimed again. Sonja suspected that he forgot things fairly often. "I'm not supposed to tell people what's going on, but I can probably tell an Allied Nations CO. Actually you can see for yourself."

He pointed over the forest in one direction. At first, Sonja could only see the regular gray snowy haze she had come to despise about the country. After some intensive squinting, and a momentary thinning of the clouds, however, she caught sight of a blurred, but unmistakable dome form.

A Black Cannon.

* * *

"... and it started firing on pedestrian traffic in the area only yesterday. We've had to block all traffic between here and here." The Blue Moon officer pointed out the stretch on the map for Sonja, indicating what was over a one hundred mile stretch. "It's caused quite a backup on the west side," another officer spoke up. "We're trying to redirect but there simply aren't many paved roads in this region."

Sonja took a sip of hot tea (the encampment only seemed to have water and vodka, luckily she'd brought her own) as she studied the maps. The tents of the improvised camp were not much warmer than the outside air, but they broke the wind and kept snow off of them, for which the Yellow Comet CO was grateful. Colin sat nearby, his hands fiddling idly. She contemplated trying to get him more involved, but finding out more about this cannon was of greater import.

"Here," she pointed to a cliff on the map with a good view of the cannon. "If you position a rocket unit here, you can reach the Black Cannon. The woods should block the Cannon's sight of it until it gets into position, after which it will be out of the the Cannon's limited firing arc."

The first officer shook his head. "If it were that simple we wouldn't have called for so much backup. These woods are filled up with rogue Black Hole units. That's who fixed up the Black Cannon to begin with. We certainly wouldn't have left a functional Black Cannon overlooking such an important road."

"But you would let a routed arm of the Black Hole army regroup around and repair one?" Her retort had come out a bit sharper than she intended, but it was such an outrageous example of poor organization and intelligence gathering. That they would let the army get such a strategically important spot was bad enough, but they had also given them ample time to fortify it. "How many of these residual bands of Black Hole units exist in Blue Moon?"

"Quite a few, I'm afraid." The door flap at the head of the command tent opened as a tall, willowy figure stepped in. A chilling wind blew through the tent, scattering around unsecured papers and knocking open the folds of the newcomer's long trench coat, revealing an old fashioned revolver tucked into a belt holster. "Blue Moon has alotta rural or jes' plain undeveloped regions. Plus, them soldiers are more slippery than snot on'a glass doorknob."

"Commander Grit!" Colin half-shouted, jumping up from his seat to greet his superior with a stiff salute.

"Now, what have I told you about that salutin', shorty?" the senior Blue Moon CO responded with a curt smile as he shoved his wide-brimmed hat onto the boy's head. He studied Sonja for a moment before saying, "Yer that Yellow Comet Lass, if I don't got my eyes screwed in backwards. The one with more'n two cents to rub together." He punctuates the last statement by tapping his temple with his index finger.

"Sonja," she said with a small bow. She then added with an acidic tone, "And you are the legendary Commander Grit, peerless marksman but notorious sloth. It _saddens _me that my countrymen do not live up to your _stringent _expectations."

He raised his hands in front of his face as if to ward off a barrage of needles. "Whoa, lower the quills there, Porcupine. 'Twas intended as a harmless jest."

Sonja harrumphed. Maybe she wouldn't take so much offense if there wasn't a ring of truth to it. Deciding that a return to the topic at hand was in order, she snapped, "So what is your plan of attack here?"

Grit, having decided that refuting Sonja's earlier claim was too much effort, collapsed into a nearby chair. Eyes closed, he waved dismissively in her general direction. "Plans are best made by the fully rested."

"Good," she stated, her chin rising proudly. "Then you won't mind me taking control of your troops for the attack." Grit's right eye popped open as Sonja shoved a hastily scrawled list in his face. "I need these units deployed and ready in two days."

"Two days?" Grit grunted, looking over the list. "We'd be lucky to get this haul in a week."

Colin, reading the paper over Grit's shoulder, started counting things out on his fingers and nodding intently. "Yes... yes! I can handle this!" Snatching the paper from Grit's hand, he rushed to the tent flap and looked back in, a new purpose glistening in his young eyes. "Just leave it to me!" Then he disappeared with another dramatic wind.

The unexpected action left everyone in the tent speechless and dazzled. "Well..." Sonja shattered the silence a full minute later. "While we wait, I need reconnaissance done in these points..." She went on to mark a seemingly endless number of vital points on the maps spread across the table.

One of the lieutenants in the room edged closer to Grit and whispered, "Sir, you're letting her take control of the operation?"

Grit sighed and mumbled back, "Junior, when you get to be my age, you wizen to things best left alone. Officers, lest they put you to work, snapping turtles, cuz they'll take your finger right off, and women, who'll take off worse." He leaned a bit closer to officer and lowered his voice and gestured to Sonja. "And that one there is what you get if you put em all in a room and set 'em on fire."


	3. Snipe Attack

"We have movement, sir."

The Black Hole soldier started to leave, his report complete, when he realized that his Commanding Officer was bench pressing two cannon shells that were as large as his torso - and while his torso was much squatter and wide than a human's would be, the size was more or less the same.

"About time! I was getting bored." The CO raised himself from his makeshift bench press and tossed the bar at the feet of the blue mutant, cracking the concrete with the impact. The huge Black Hole CO laughed sardonically as it dove for cover, bracing for the expectant explosion. "Ha! Don't worry, they're duds."

He scratched his head before replacing his spiked helmet. "At least I think they are."

Stepping over the recovering creature, he lumbered down the hall towards the observation tower of the Black Cannon. The soldier made a few quick adjustments on his environment suit to conform to his suddenly elevated heart rate and breathing, then scrambled after his commander.

"We've spotted recon units coming in and out of sight around a few of our artillery installations..."

"Spotted? We didn't destroy them?" The CO's eyes were difficult to read through his dark goggles, but his mouth, twisted in a snarl, was not.

"N...no, sir. They moved out of sight into the forest before we could bring our firepower to bear."

He growled menacingly and continued to prowl down the hallway, his knuckles almost brushing the steel-grate floor. "How large is their force?"

"We...we don't know that either."

The CO only snorted this time as he pushed open the big double doors to the control room. Several engineers hovered over terminals and watched dials moving back and forth. He didn't know how most of the stuff worked nor did he care - all he knew was that when he told them to fire, things blew up.

"We haven't seen this level of coordination with the Blue Moon army during our entire stay here..."

Flak gave a sardonic smile, basking in the feeling of knowing something other people didn't. "That's because this isn't Blue Moon." It seemed that everything was going according to _her _plan.

* * *

"Status?" Sonja's voice came in over the radio between bursts of white noise.

"Nosey Osprey in place," a grizzled Blue Moon officer responded as the last of his Recon unit took up position between the pine trees of the low foothills. A small Black Hole artillery installation could be seen through areas of thin trees to the north, and the base of the Black Hole Cannon could be seen just over the treeline to the northeast.

"Bearded Squirrel is a go," responded a well built man with a bazooka perched on his shoulder. His company of mechs were dispatched in a ravine just underneath a Black Hole mini-cannon, ready to climb up the cliff and engage on orders.

"Curious Fox on the prowl," a heavyset woman officer in heavy skins yelled over the din of the helicopter rotors. The Battlecopter unit stayed low so the trees shielded their approach.

Sonja, back at the tent HQ, listened as a dozen more confirmations came in. Toothless Beaver, Flying Marten, Lucky Hare. The bizarre code names were somewhat mesmerizing to the girl, used to dealing with the straightforwardness of her own country's Imperial Army. But now was not the time for distraction. The planning stage, and her part, was coming to an end. "The wolf is in the birdhouse," she recited, the code phrase signifying the next phase of the plan. It sounded off, however. She hoped she hadn't just embarrassed herself by misspeaking her most important order of the entire operation.

_Henhouse_, Grit silently corrected, suppressing a chuckle. Spread out behind him were a collection of indirect fire vehicles, the rest of his forces scattered throughout the woods where Sonja had directed them. Ahead of him loomed the shadow of the massive Black Cannon.

He'd watched the young Yellow Comet CO for the past week pouring over maps of the region, discussing reports from the recon runners, sending out air runs. Despite that, much of the 'intelligence' that she was basing this strike on seemed to be guesswork. Blind firing into areas where she had decided enemy emplacements were present. Hosts of assumptions, anticipations. Either she was making things up, or she was seeing things a level or two beyond what he was capable of.

Trusting her at this point wasn't important. He had to see how this was going down.

"Alright boys," he announced on the radio, chewing on a piece of straw. "Time for a Snipe Attack."

On cue, the entire forest lit up.

* * *

"Commander Flak."

"That's my name. Don't wear it out or I'll... something... new one."

"I reckon that one got away from 'ya," Grit said blithely.

Flak and a handful of his officers had been captured fleeing out the back entry of the Black Cannon - a retreat that had been perfectly forecast and countered by Sonja's planning. The prisoners were now back at the Blue Moon HQ tent on the main road, where Grit and Colin stood to interrogate them. Black Hole COs tended to be a slippery bunch, so they'd been escorted by a sizeable force of tanks and infantry which even now stood watch around the camp.

Flak looked around as much as his huge neck would allow, since the layer upon layers of chains the wrapped around his arms and torso prevented him swiveling.

"Where's the yellow chick? I was looking forward to some eye candy. It's a sausage party in here."

His black goggles hid the sinister twinkle of his eye, but not disgusting motion of his tongue licking his lips. Grit's eyebrow arched in response to the question - and the rest of his face twitched in revulsion.

"That's an awful fast rabbit to catch in the dark. How do you know that Sonja's here?"

"Guess I'm not as dumb as I look, huh?" Flak gave a nice jagged-tooth grin to punctuate it.

"It'd be pretty hard to be as dumb as you look," Colin retorted. The boy had a look of utter contempt stamped on his face - the same look he'd had since laying eyes on the thug. If some grudges died harder than others, then Colin's hatred for Black Hole would probably need an ancient ritual to break.

"What are you trying to say, punk?" Flak growled back.

"I'm saying that you're so dumb, you're probably contagious! That's probably why all your troops live in glass bubbles!"

"What... are you trying to say?" This was more of a sincere question than a threat, since Flak had actually gotten lost in there somewhere.

"What he's sayin' is that we don't think you could'a puzzled that out yourself. So who's been sowing us and feeding ya the seeds?"

Grit chewed a moment, considering his words and their likely reception, then rephrased.

"Who's yer boss?"

"And you call _me_ slow. Everyone is gone - Hawke, Sturm, Von Bolt. I'm _independent _now."

"Big word," Colin mocked. "How long did it take you to learn it?"

"Three weeks," Flak said proudly.

"Stubborn as a froze hog, I'll give ya that much. Then again we weren't bankin' too much on you squawkin'."

Flak squinted at Grit, squeezing the rubber goggles between the sockets of his eyes.

"What are you trying to say?"

* * *

"Quite the mess," Sonja commented to no one in particular. She received a couple of stray glances her way from the rest of her expedition, but the most response she got were a few gruff acknowledgements before they went back to work.

She tiptoed over piles of shattered concrete, twisted rebar and torn metal paneling. To her left, through the gaping house-sized hole in the Black Cannon's outer bulkhead, dozens of stories high, she could see miles after miles of frozen forest wasteland spread out under the gray misty sky. Her hatred of the place was momentarily forgotten as she basked in the beauty of the vista.

A strong, biting wind that cut straight through her winter jacket and threatened to pull her straight out the hole reminded her that this place was evil and deserved only contempt.

Even in the literally freezing weather, whole sections of the massive structure were still hot from the aftermath of the missile bombardment, and smoke poured out of the Swiss-cheese orifices left from the battle. While she had asked that the fortification remain as intact as possible, minimizing the number of times the gun fortress could fire before it was disable was paramount, and so destroying the control panel was a necessity. Sonja was not optimistic of finding much of value in the debris, but if there was something to be found, even if it took days, or even weeks, she would discover it.

"Commander, I think you should come take a look at this!"

"What? Already? We only just got here."

The Blue Moon officer gave her a blank stare.

"Should we... go back to searching and show this to you later?"

"No, no, that would be silly," she dismissed, picking her way over to the room he was beckoning towards. "It just seems a bit anticlimactic is all..."

The officer stared after her for a moment before shaking his head and following her in.

Beyond the doorway was a slope of debris that went into a lower level - the doorways in this lower room were all sealed or melted through, so the only entrance was through the collapsed ceiling. The room she stepped down into was very dark - the few flashlights between them proved insufficient to get a grasp of the size of the room, so flares were being lit and scattered throughout. Sonja stepped forward into the room to investigate and immediately stepped on a sharp, hard object that crunched beneath her feet.

She bent down to examine the debris, as even a cursory glance revealed it was not merely a fragment of concrete or metal. She picked up the fragment, recognizing the nearly transparent crystalline structure, tinged with veins of violet.

"Black Crystal," she muttered. More flares were lit and thrown and Sonja could now see that the chamber's entire floor was littered with small fragments of the crystal, becoming more dense as they approached a massive socket ringed with strangely-shaped but irrevocably damaged machinery.

She circled the room, stepping over ruptured components and tiptoeing over unstable sections of the floor, inspecting the machinery. After half an hour of studying, she was left with more questions than answers - the crystals themselves were identical to the ones used by the Black Hole during Von Bolt's invasion of Omega Land, but the technology attached to those had been simple - the crystal was the focal, drawing energy from the environment around it. The machinery attached to the Black Obelisk had only been to conduct that drawn energy elsewhere.

This technology was far more advanced - with such little knowledge of how these mechanisms worked, she was left to idle speculation, but it seemed the machinery here could _control_ the crystal. The room seemed to also be keyed to _receive _energy as much as it seemed to send it. Then there was the fact that, perhaps compared to any other crystal she'd ever seen, this Black Crystal was large, it was still a dwarf compared to the crystals used by Von Bolt. Those had spanned multiple stories, the Black Obelisk itself the size of an entire fortress. This one would have barely stood two men high before it was shattered by the bombardment. That the forest surrounding the Black Cannon also seemed perfectly healthy only reinforced that the crystal was not pulling much energy from around it - if at all.

"I reckon they couldn't get it to work in time," Grit commented, the lanky CO having snuck up behind her unnoticed.

Sonja was used to that kind of treatment from her officers back in Yellow Comet and betrayed no surprise.

"Possible, I suppose," Sonja admitted reluctantly, sparing another glance into the huge room. "But how else besides this crystal could they have repaired the Black Cannon so quickly? And reinforced themselves?"

Grit shrugged. As far as he was concerned everything here was settled, and the details weren't worth sweating. This was an attitude that Sonja was convinced was prevalent throughout Macro Land, and one of the reasons they found themselves under siege so often.

"Did Flak have anything to say?"

Sonja slipped on her reading glasses, pulled out a pad and pen and started scribbling notes.

"Little I'd feel comfortable repeatin' in mixed company, no."

"We'll have to hope his old partner in arms is more loquacious."

"Ah, see, I never got around ta' asking what you was in town fer," Grit said, idly adjusting his wide-brimmed hat. "But I figgered it weren't fer the nice weather. Even so, I only spoke to the poofy-haired runt a few times m'self, and making sense of her prattling is like digging fer treasure in a swamp."

"So stop digging," Sonja responded, replacing her pad and starting up the pile of rock towards the exit. "With Lash, all the valuable bits are already floating at the top."


	4. Guest of Honor

The National HQ of Blue Moon, with it's towering walls, elegant palisades and marble exteriors, stood at great contrast to the highly industrialized and bland cityscape that surrounded it. Low income housing was abundant and interspersed with multiple storied factories of smoke-stained concrete and palpable misery.

The divide between the rich and the poor was not a new concept to Sonja - her own living conditions in the Imperial Palace were suitably queen-like compared to the common farmhand or factory worker who toiled day in and day out with no chance for upward social mobility. Still, she saw more slumped shoulders in one drive through Blue Moon's capital than she had seen in her life back in Yellow Comet.

_A difference in personal honor and responsibility_, Sonja decided pridefully, although she had the self-awareness to ponder her own cultural arrogance. _Thoughts for another time_, she decided as her jeep pulled into the enormous semi-circle driveway leading up to the fortified mansion of Blue Moon's central headquarters.

She stepped out onto the intricately laid cobblestone walk wearing a simple overcoat over her tunic and long skirt. The weather in the middle of the city was more manageable than in the countryside, although the air quality left much to be desired. While her muscles were spared biting wind, her lungs were assaulted by the soot that fell like snow. Only a few moments of exposure incited a fit of coughing.

Between bouts of her body's attempts at ejecting her internal organs, she was forced to reevaluate her thoughts on the city's inhabitants. The people's down-turned gazes must, by necessity, be an attempt to find clean air. In fact, she was now suspicious that Blue Moon residents must be an offshoot of the human race that requires little or no oxygen whatsoever.

"Can I get you some water, Commander?"

Sonja looked up, but her eyes were too watery to make out anything but the newcomer's silhouette - fortunately with General Olaf's spectacular beard and impressive girth that was all she needed to identify him. Thinner, ephemeral shapes that surrounded him informed her that he was not alone.

"Yes please," she replied. Well, she said something intended as 'yes please' but more closely resembled the drowned voice of a kappa. The General seemed to get the gist of it nonetheless, and a canteen was passed to her. After a few seconds of completely unattractive gulping, Sonja handed the canteen back, wiped her eyes, and stood, once again the picture of control and propriety, albeit a red and swollen one.

She bowed before her host and what appeared to be a small group of other high ranking government officials, if the host of colorful insignias on their fine woolen coats were indication. General Olaf seemed to be beyond the need for such trinkets, and was dressed in his signature blue tunic and fur-lined cloak. A voluminous brown beard and mustache streaked with white fell halfway down his chest and left little visible of his face besides his bulbous red nose and beady eyes. He had an intimidating presence that still spoke with a touch of patriarchal love. Seeing the man, Sonja couldn't help but be reminded of her own father, the dull oaf whom after only a week of travel she was already starting to miss.

"General Secretary," she greeted Olaf. "Ministers," she said, bowing to each of the men and women present. "You have the thanks of the Imperial Empire of Yellow Comet, as well as my personal thanks, for receiving me as guest in your great nation. I -"

Sonja's exhaustively rehearsed greeting was interrupted by the sound of heavy tank treads rolling up the drive of the Hall. The group looked on: some astonished, some completely blank, and another - Olaf - _furious_, as a mobile artillery tank pulled up just behind Sonja's jeep with Commander Grit standing on the top, one arm wrapped around the huge blue-stained barrel.

Grit jumped down, landing next to Sonja and giving her a grossly inappropriate pat on the head.

"There you are. Was afraid I'd miss you riding this 'ol heap."

"Grit!" Olaf just about yelled, his face several shades of red deeper than just a moment before. "What the heck are you doing? You might as well have just ridden a missile back to the Square!"

"Well, I reckoned that, but I figgered it was just a tad more dangerous than I was comfterble doin'."

He looked around with a confused expression on his face.

"Why are y'all standing around like armless badgers fer? Idle around long enough an yer liable fer birds to start roostin' on ya." He punctuated this with a suspicious look skyward.

"We _were_ making introductions!" Olaf responded, now so red that Sonja was surprised his hair didn't catch on fire.

"That seems a bit silly, what with y'all havin' met before..."

Grit shrugged and started heading towards the mansion. Olaf, seeming to have forgotten everything else, waddled after him, shouting obscenities.

"Grit, you disrespectful toad! Get back here, or I swear it..."

The remaining Ministers, their faces a mix of emotions, premier among them embarrassment, turned back to Sonja who reddened considerably herself. She forced an awkward smile and tried to recall the rest of her elaborate introduction, but none of it seemed to be coming back to her.

"Um... hi?"

* * *

With Olaf and Grit indisposed, the introductions and other niceties went smoothly, if stiffly. The Blue Moon ministers weren't unpleasant, but not one of them had any particularly notable traits or outstanding personality. _Like someone drew several heads with different hats, but added the faces with a stamp_, Sonja mused. They took her on a tour of the Hall, through a few galleries and meeting halls, the massive indoor garden with it's stunning fountain works. Still, Sonja found herself wishing the tour to end faster so she could get on with the reason for her visit.

Unfortunately, being proper hosts obligated the Party to invite her to join them for dinner, likely followed by a bout of lively drinking - that is, unless she could find an excuse to slip away to bed. An easy sell, considering the stereotypes she was well aware existed about Yellow Comet natives. Regardless, visiting the Containment Center was obviously not on the day's agenda.

"So does your facility have a library or study?" she asked the group as politely as she could muster. "I have a bit of research I can do prior to the banquet."

"Certainly!" one of the Minsters exclaimed. "Join us in my study - we were already planning to retreat there for some drinks anyway!"

"Oh... _joy_," she mumbled, feeling none herself.


	5. The After Party

"Up an' at'em honeycomb. I got about two dozen slogans about the errors 'a sloth and I'd never forgive you if you made me use one."

Sonja groaned and shoved the pillow onto her head harder. Even muffled by the door, Grit's voice was like a thundercloud in her head.

"Go away!" she shouted, curling into a ball. If she squeezed tight enough together, perhaps she'd turn inside out and the pain in her head would be ejected. How much had she had to drink last night? It was honestly hazy after she had finished half of the first glass. In her defense it had been a very large glass.

"Ugh," she groaned again, realizing she couldn't even remember how dinner had gone. She prayed to her ancestors she hadn't inadvertently caused an international incident.

"You got twenty minutes 'for I bust in there and drag ya to the Containment Center m'self - in 'ur unmentionables if necessary."

She could hear his footsteps fade as he left. Grit being so proactive was... uncharacteristic. While she might have lauded it normally, her hangover was not nearly so appreciative. She sighed and poured out of the bedsheets to begin dressing.

"Why couldn't you have shown up like this yesterday?" she mumbled to the closed door.

...

The bumpy ride didn't help her migraine, but the water and biscuits that Grit brought with him did. She sat in one seat of the jeep quietly munching while the Blue Moon CO sat beside her, chewing on a piece of straw. His lanky appendages were unfit for the compact jeep, but he'd found a way to accommodate himself by using the seats in front of him as footrests. Sonja's driver, with a pair of boots hanging just above his head, wasn't quite as comfortable with the situation.

After a long period of awkward silence on Sonja's part (Grit seemed to be perfectly content with the quiet), she managed to get up the courage ask her questions.

"So were you... _around_ last night?"

"Here and there, I 'spose. Why d'ya ask?"

"Oh, well I was just wondering..." she said, slightly blushing, "...if I didn't anything... _untoward_ during or after dinner."

"Ya mean like asking all the minsters if they can catch as many pigs as they got pens fer?"

"What?" she asked, her confusion quelling her embarrassment.

Grit, on the other hand, turned sheepish. "Ah, er, forget it. Wasn't a comment I should've mentioned in good company."

"You can't just change the subject like that," she scolded. "I mean, I assume it has something to do with idle boasting. More interesting is what would get _you_ to be all defensive unless... oh. _Oh._"

Her imagination got the better of her and a scarlet blush crept up her neck. "What does... pens? That doesn't even... what do the pigs represent?"

Grit's sudden laughter cut the tension like a precision missile. "Ha ha! Now if there was ever an anecdote about being too sharp fer yer own good, that must be it!" He chuckled himself out for another moment before adding, "Ta answer yer original question, worry not. You were a perfect lady, even with more fire in your veins than blood! Can't make the same statement for my fellow countrymen though."

"What? What do you mean?" her color had simmered somewhat.

"Well I wasn't there person-like, but I heard secondhand that one of the ministers got some loose hands at one point, and it ended with a lass half his size layin' him out on the floor for it."

Sonja's blush returned full force, accompanied by the infectious sound of Grit's laughter.

...

The Containment Center was a melancholic structure, by design or by default Sonja was unsure. While it was primarily upheld as a rehabilitation center, particularly for Black Hole war criminals, Sonja knew that it was also host to a fair number of Blue Moon political prisoners. Politics and propaganda were dizzying games that dim the opinion of human nature, and she was certain that the generally pleasant and good-hearted Olaf disliked playing them. Better to obsess himself with reforming Grit's harmless disobedience and let the Councilors deal with the real issues that threaten the stability of the state.

"C'mon, I'll take ya on a tour," Grit said, helping her out of the jeep.

Once through the sliding glass front door they entered a disarmingly quaint reception area, like one might see in a hospital. On the other side of the heavy security doors the illusion vanished. Hallway after hallway of vaulted ceilings, bar doors lining the walls like books in a library. Soldiers in blue uniforms crawled along balconies, disappearing into the nooks and crannies of the wall for another to appear in his place.

"This way," Grit said.

Sonja followed silently, imagining hundreds of eyes above her, following the small dot of yellow that had appeared in this dreary sea of blue and gray. What did they make of her? Did they still have the minds to contemplate it at all? What kind of coping mechanisms do you need to stay sane in a life of such isolation?

Grit led them to an elevator on the other side of the facility. The lift was large enough to hold a jeep. Grit manipulated a large switch that sent them slowly lurching downward. The basement levels were even better lit than the facilities above, as the ceiling was a sheet of fluorescent lights, broken only by the occasional snaking ventilation shaft. Still, the white, occasionally flickering lights were no substitution for sunlight and this underground dungeon left Sonja uncomfortable.

Grit led Sonja through a series of narrow hallways, all lined with one-way plate glass. Her eyes studied the occupants of each cells as they made their way past. A young man going through an exercise routine; a dignified woman reading a ten year old magazine; a disheveled gentleman playing chess with himself. A thousand questions for every window she peered into but no time to find out even a single answer.

Sonja hadn't realized they'd arrived until she accidentally bumped into Grit. He was standing erect, staring into a window with a disheveled young woman. On anyone else, the state of the woman's torn uniform would have been cause for Sonja to suspect abuse, but Sonja was relatively sure that Lash had been responsible for her own wardrobe modifications. She sat in the center of her cell, half shirt and shorts, playing with a set of wooden cars. Sonja watched as Lash proceeded to stage a multiple-car pileup, complete with explosions that she pantomimed out.

"Well that's what you've come half-a world ta' see. Really think you'll get anythin' useful from 'er?"

But Sonja scarcely heard him. A glance had opened up the gateways of her memories to the wars, to her interactions, her contests with this woman, where the stakes were the lives of millions. She remembered the stress and pressure of command against an overwhelming and unrelenting force.

And she was confronted with how much she missed it.


	6. Playing Dumb

"Watch it, I'm a delicate flower!" shouted Lash as the guard forcefully pushed her into the meeting room. The guard rolled his eyes and started to leave, closing the door behind him.

"I mean one minute you're ignoring my catcalls and the next you're grabbing me all rough-like. It's mixed signals, Guard Number Two!"

Lash had a mischievous expression as she finally turned to acknowledge Sonja and Grit, Sonja sitting in the fold-up chair on the other side of a featureless aluminum table with a large binder sitting in front of her and Grit leaning against the far wall. A second chair sat invitingly in front of her.

"Well, well. I was expecting the scarecrow, but the nerd is a pleasant surprise." She spun the second chair around and sat down, folding her arms on the back rim and resting her chin atop them.

Sonja studied Lash. "A surprise? Other events lead me to believe otherwise."

"Ugh, you're doing it _wrong_," Lash said. "You're supposed to start with 'how have you been enjoying prison?' and then I go like 'Well it's no Orange Star Islands!' or maybe 'Great! It reminds me a lot of grade school back home, but with worse food and a lot more body hair!' "

"This ain't no feel good movie a'tha week, ya scrawny pig-nosed lout," Grit began, but Sonja cut him off with a gesture. As they'd discussed beforehand, Sonja was fully prepared to attack whatever house of cards Lash had erected with a frontal assault; it would be all the more satisfying when they came crashing down on of her.

"Alright, Lash. How have you been enjoying prison?"

Lash's expression melted from mischievous and brazen to sweet and vulnerable. "Better now that you're here," she said, batting her eyelashes for emphasis.

Sonja's face exploded in scarlet, and she wondered why the temperature had so dramatically risen in the room.

"You think you can throw me off balance with such a silly display?" Sonja meant to say. In reality she sputtered out something closer to "That's...you're...what?" As the words registered in her head as her own she blushed even more fiercely. This wasn't how it was supposed to go at all!

Lash erupted with laughter, her violent fit causing her to fall backwards onto the floor, the chair landing atop her. The collision didn't slow her down. Even Grit couldn't help but chuckle, although he tried his best to hide it with hand and a cough.

"E-enough!" Sonja shouted. "No games, Lash! How have you been giving Flak orders?"

"Orders? To Flakky-poo?" With an unsettling display of flexibility, Lash slid out from under the upturned chair and unfurled herself on top of it, without disturbing it an inch. "Do I look like the ordery-type? I just like to play with my toys. That's what it says in that big intimidating folder of yours, doesn't it?"

"An unusual amount of self-awareness for someone who fiddles with toys, isn't it?"

"I don't know, is it?"

Sonja's eyes narrowed on the girl. Lash's empty (or so it seemed) grin flashed back at her.

"You're wrong, by the way," Sonja said.

"Oh?"

Sonja opened the large binder she had in front of her and began to read from the notes.

"Lash, CO of Black Hole. Specializes in defensive positioning and highly skilled in advanced research and development of military technology."

Lash feigned an expression of intense interest. Sonja continued.

"A nearly unmatched tactician, but is prone to overconfidence and flights of fancy. Holds little regard for human life, but shows attachment to devices of her own creation."

Lash's grin finally began to falter. "So is this a new strategy? To _bore_me to death?"

"So you agree with my assessment then?"

"I don't know. What does 'assessment' mean?" Lash braced her arms on the legs of the up-ended chair and lifted herself off the ground and began to do a series of acrobatic stretches. As Lash opened her legs to do a mid-air split, Sonja found herself struggling to keep her eyes averted from the inner-thighs that Lash's shorts barely covered.

Sonja closed the folder in frustration. "Playing dumb doesn't suit you, Lash, but fine, you win. You didn't have anything to do with Flak's escapades here in Blue Moon or Adder's stand in Green Earth-"

"What? Adder shouldn't be in-" The temporary loss of concentration caused Lash to topple from her precarious position, and the chair toppled over under her weight. She rolled with the fall, avoiding injuring herself, but she ended up in a rather unflattering tangle of limbs and hair sprawled on the floor.

"So where is Adder _supposed_to be, Lash?" Sonja asked, a smile on her face this time around.

Lash glared at Sonja, but a smile soon graced her lips as well - this one far from empty.

"Hmph," was all Grit had to say.


	7. Planning Around Plans

"So what do you think, Grit?"

"I think if you flipped a coin fer each of her sentences, saying every tails was true would be optimistic," Grit said.

"Yes, I get it, Lash is untrustworthy," Sonja said. "But what do you think of her proposal?"

Grit frowned. He pulled his hat on as they exited the main doors of the facility, and the two of them were once again exposed to the harsh atmosphere. He looked back at Sonja with consternation, and not a small amount of concern.

"So you're taking it seriously then."

"Why not?" Sonja asked. "Truth be told, it fits perfectly in line with everything I came to Blue Moon for in the first place."

"And that doesn't see suspicious to you at all," he said.

"What, are you suggesting Lash foresaw my decision to utilize Black Hole technology in the reconstruction of Wars World? That she managed to set up some elaborate trap involving her past compatriots before she was incarcerated, and is now somehow controlling them from within the prison?"

"Well when you put it like that…" Grit started.

"Well, I think so too. And I want to find out what her endgame is," Sonja said. She continued walking a few steps before realizing that Grit had fallen behind. She turned back to find a baffled expression on his face.

"You know it, but you… this has all been…?" He scratched the back of his neck and shook his head. "It never occurred to you that the easiest way to 'win' this game ain't ta play?" he asked.

"Grit," Sonja said, giving him a level expression. "This is Lash we're talking about. Do you really think not playing is an option?"

* * *

General Olaf's disorderly, comical demeanor had dissolved once Sonja had detailed her plans to him. His words were curt, to the point, and decidedly negative.

"I don't like it."

The answer hardly came as surprising. "None of us like it, General Olaf," Sonja said.

Grit, leaning against the far wall, watching the proceedings, snorted at that.

"What was that for, Grit?" Sonja asked, shooting him a dangerous gaze.

"Spit in a bucket is all," he said, waving dismissively.

She scowled and turned back to Olaf, who was sitting in a large luxurious chair in front of the fireplace of his personal quarters. He was looking distantly into a painting on the mantle: a brown-haired Olaf, mounted atop a horse perched on a snowdrift with his village spread out behind him. He reached for a glass of spirits on the table beside his chair, and Sonja spotted an almost imperceptible shake before he noticed and corrected it. He swallowed the contents of the glass in one gulp and snorted.

"She hasn't finished her term yet," Olaf said. There was a gruffness to his voice, a solemn gruffness that came from genuine upset, rather than the callous façade that he usually put out to hide his softer side. Sonja was seeing in Olaf a wounded bear, and she knew she would have to speak very carefully to not induce its fight or flight response.

"I'm not asking you to commute it – Lash's sentence can be carried out just as well in Yellow Comet as it would be in Blue Moon."

"Sure of that, are you?" Olaf said.

"You're choosing now to question my conviction?" Sonja asked.

Olaf turned and met her eyes. Something he saw there softened his expression. "No, I suppose not."

Grit decided to take the opportunity to chime in. "Why yellow comet though?"

Both Sonja and Olaf turned towards him in surprise. Sonja hadn't been expecting to have to make an argument against both Grit and Olaf, and she was left momentarily speechless. Grit, lacking an answer to his question, elaborated.

"Ya plan to have Lash chuck up the plans to her various gizmos, right? Why does that have to happen in Yellow Comet? There's plenty in Blue Moon to fix."

"O-of course," Sonja said, her mind reeling to put together an argument.

"Grit presents an interesting point, for once," Olaf said, giving the lanky man a suspicious glance. But it was a glance quickly turned on Sonja. "Your plan works just as well here as in your homeland."

Sonja's gears were turning so fast that they were beginning to strip. Manipulating a person was hard; manipulating two was nearly impossible. She decided to change tactics.

"You're right; it would work just as well," Sonja said. "But it's my plan and my expertise, and Yellow Comet needs the aid just as much." Her gaze drifted from Olaf to Grit, whose sudden shift in role had left her confused. Her eyes sought the smallest clue to his motivation in his passive expression. Grit met her eyes, and an intensity was there that she hadn't recognized before.

"But the monkey is in our cage," Grit said.

Sonja's eyes shined. "So we've agreed that the plan is solid, and now we're just arguing over terms."

Both sets of eyes then turned to Olaf. The general had begun to feel out of the loop, and suddenly he was the center of attention again. His gaze darted from Sonja to Grit and back again, and he audibly expressed his disapproval of the whole situation with a complex and intricate grumble.

"I don't like it," Olaf said. But this time, he said it with resignation.


	8. Letter to Father

"Your Majesty," said the Yellow Comet Grand Chamberlain, "a letter has arrived from your daugher."

"Sonja?" Kanbei said, putting down his most recent issue of Swords and Capes Monthly. "Read it to me!"

The Grand Chamberlain cleared his throat and began to read. "Dear Father-"

"No, no, no," Kanbei said. "Read it in Sonja's voice!"

The Grand Chamberlain hesitated a moment. "Might that be a better role for General Saigyouji?" he suggested, as the aide-de-camp at least shared a gender with the crown princess.

"General Saigyouji is busy organizing my DVD collection," Kanbei said authoritatively. "Now read!"

The Grand Chamberlain sighed, and then began reading in his best imitation of a teenage girl's voice.

_~Dear Father,_

_~Sorry for not writing more often, it's rather busy here. I hope you are well, and have been minding your diet. As much as you love sweet buns you can't dedicate three meals a day to them. _

"But Sonja-" Kanbei said.

"I am only reading the letter, your majesty," the chamberlain said.

"Right, yes your technique is superb. Continue."

_~Working with Lash is an exhausting process. She seems willing enough to parcel out small chunks of information, but only if she's sufficiently entertained. Certain incentives like limited workshop access or supervised outdoor time help, but her game of choice is intellectual sparring. The problem is how petulant and immature she is; if I manage to beat her at her own game, she becomes irritable and uncooperative, but if I pull my punches she gets distant and uninterested. _

_~Still, I've managed to eke out enough from her to get segments of black-pipeline functional. We've repurposed a large chunk of intact pipeline to route steel from the factories in the Magnetic Mountains to the most damaged cluster of cities on the north coast. Although the initial cost of setup was high, the logistics and cost of transportation for the goods have been almost entirely eliminated, and I calculate we'll break even on the project in less than two-months' time. _

_~Present success aside, the effects of the pipes casts a spotlight on the fundamental rules of science and mathematics. Do the pipes literally create something out of nothing? As clever as Lash is, I am unconvinced that she can casually skirt the laws of thermodynamics. But that begs the question: where is the energy coming from?_

_~My efforts to determine Lash's machinations have been even less successful, and perhaps even more frustrating. We've been careful to keep her and Flak totally isolated from each other, although I have my doubts on how effective that plan is. Lash must have expected us to take those steps. I've pondered arranging a meeting between the two of them to see what happens... but what if Lash expected that? Am I playing into her hands by trying to distinguish her motives?_

_~The tools at my disposal are limited, so I've taken to analyzing security camera footage of her and archiving her actions. The original idea was that once distilled down into data points and cross referenced with each other patterns might begin to emerge in her actions. The only pattern I've seemed to uncover, unfortunately, is that data points become less coherent the longer I neglect sleep, which is rather easy to do since the video room has no clock or windows. The style of writing I take on becomes somewhat strange when under the effects of fatigue as well. The writing begins to lose intellectual cohesion and starts to focus on Lash's adopted mannerisms. __The tone shifts away from clinical observation to flowery poetics. _

The Chamberlain became perplexed when he reached the next section, as it was scratched out and barely legible.

_-One note compared the way she meticulously stacked the mashed potatoes and mixed greens of her meal tray to the pursuit of a masterpiece of modern art. It's more than that though. Just looking at her comes with a variety of involuntary biological reactions that-_

He scratched his head and skipped onward.

_~Sorry, this is getting long and off-topic. _

_~Long story short, I've enclosed a list of supplies and blueprints for the lab that I'll need built for me by the time I return. I've completed my end of the contract, so it's time for Olaf to hold up his._

_~I'm coming home, and Lash is coming with me._

_~Sonja_


	9. Overactive Imagination

"No no no, the pipes would be clearly visible from White Heron Castle here," Kanbei said.

"Father, the White Heron Castle hasn't even been _used_ for over a hundred years -"

"And it is a site of great cultural importance. I will not have it defamed," Kabei said, unflinchingly.

Sonja sighed and put this map atop the pile of rejected proposals - a pile that had grown to include every proposal she had brought. It just wasn't possible to lay out an infrastructure of Black Pipes through the country without passing at least one cultural landmark and/or tourist trap. And ancestors forbid she try to _bury_ the pipes anywhere on yellow comet land.

"Father you are being unreasonable-"

"Chamberlain," Kanbei said.

The Grand Chamberlain stood to attention. "Yes, your majesty?"

"Do you believe the pace of reconstruction is lacking?"

A bead of sweat made its way down the Chamberlain's brow as he threw an uncertain glance in Sonja's direction. "The pace of reconstruction is satisfactory, in my opinion, your Majesty."

Kanbei turned to Sonja, his expression stern. "Sonja, I let you speak to the Black Hole criminal. I agreed to have her housed here. I agreed to hear your proposals, all despite my doubts. I am many things, but unreasonable is not one of them."

"But-"

Kanbei was firm. "The current reconstruction efforts are satisfactory. Your proposals are not. If you have nothing else, I will make arrangements to have the Black Hole criminal returned to General Olaf."

Sonja huffed indignantly.

Kanbei turned his back on his daughter. "That is all then."

* * *

Sonja entered her penthouse workshop in a tizzy, throwing the rejected proposals into a chaotic pile on a nearby workbench. She threw herself into her computer chair with enough force to make her spin around a few times.

"I take it that the meeting with the Pops didn't go so hot?"

Sonja glanced at Lash, secured in a cage of laminated security glass. Sonja had been given nearly unrestricted access to Lash, although no effort had been spared to keep security tight. She was under 24 hour surveillance from multiple angles. Copious sensors were installed in the glass, constantly monitoring for potential breaches. There were a dozen panic buttons installed throughout the workshop that would bring a special forces unit into the room with a moment's delay.

"'Hot' was the exact opposite of how it went," said Sonja. "He barely entertained the idea! Why did he even let me bring you over if he's totally unwilling to compromise?!"

"Things would be a lot easier if it was you in charge instead of him." Lash said. She was hanging upside down from a scaffold of monkey bars. The inside of the containment area resembled a park playground, complete with slide and swing set. It was the only request of accommodations that Lash had made that conformed to security guidelines, and even then every joint and bolt had been fastidiously adjusted for tamper-proofing.

"Yes it would," Sonja said. She angrily typed in her password.

"What would that take?" Lash asked.

"What would what take?" Sonja asked. Her mind raced through landscapes and tourist spreads, too fired up to wait for the operating system to boot. In her experience there was no problem that could not be overcome with persistence and critical thinking. This would be no exception.

"Putting you in charge instead of him," Lash said.

"What are you talking about?" Sonja asked. The mapping program opened with a vibrant splash of color and a bubbly animated intro. Sonja opened her project file and deleted every layer. A fresh perspective needed a blank canvas..

Lash audibly sighed. "Sonja."

"Hmm?" Sonja started laying pipe on the map. She entertained a plan to build a series of canopies over the pipeline, but quickly dismissed it. The cost of such an addition would make the project cost negative for years longer than expected.

"Hey, lockerbait!"

"What?!" Sonja yelled, finally breaking visual contact with the screen and turning to Lash.

"What would it take," Lash said, enunciating each syllable clearly. "To put you in charge?"

"What, like seriously?" Sonja asked.

"Hypothetically."

"Well, I mean..." Sonja was taken aback for a moment. She hadn't thought about it before. "We're a constitutional monarchy, and monarchs serve for life."

"So you're the prettiest princess 'till Pops pops, huh?"

"You are absolutely the worst sort of person," Sonja said.

"We're just talking hypotheticals!"

Sonja shot Lash a nasty look as she got up to grab her headphones, which were sitting on a chair halfway across the room. On the way, her mind started to pick apart Lash's words, and she was presented with an image of her father's funeral, grand and widely televised. She stopped short as her knees liquified beneath her, suddenly terrified, as she imagined a void where her father used to be. She collapsed, knocking over a tea table. There was a shocking CRASH as a teapot hit the floor and scattered fragments of gold-etched ceramic in every direction.

"Oh my god, oh my god," Sonja said, wheezing. She clutched her chest desperately, willing her lungs to function again. Colors swirled chaotically before her eyes and the orientation of the room wouldn't stay straight.

"Stripped gears and cracked transmissions what the hell is wrong with you, lady?" Lash said. She jumped down from the monkey bars and pressed her face to the glass enclosure to get a better view. She banged on the glass with her fist to no effect. "Hey, are you alright?"

Sonja continued to hyperventilate, so Lash scrambled to the intercom. "Hey, hey, get in here, the nerd needs you!"

Moments later two attendants burst through the doors. One rushed to Sonja's aid while the other called for oxygen and a stretcher. Soon she was wheeled out of the workshop and out to the infirmary.

Lash blinked as the doors closed behind them.

"Not exactly what I was going for."

* * *

Sonja had her own private infirmary quarters. She wasn't an extraordinarily unhealthy child, her father just tended towards the overprotective and over-prepared. The room was furnished like a second bedroom, complete with a small library, television, set of stuffed animals and an entire wall of medical apparati. Sonja absently scratched at the EKG lead on her left wrist, one of twelve distributed across her body. Twenty-four hour overnight supervision was a bit excessive for one panic attack, in Sonja's opinion, but at least she'd talked them out of the intravenous drip.

The small library was stocked with books targeted at children half Sonja's age. Every time she would announce an intention to have them replaced, but she never followed through. In truth, she loved the rare opportunity to indulge in her childhood memories.

The story she was reading was about a man who saved a turtle from a bunch of boys, and was rewarded with an invitation to a magical underwater kingdom. He had just met the princess and her entourage when the television flickered on.

"Hey Nerd, you okay?"

"Lash, how did you get on the tv?" Sonja asked. Her brow furrowed in irritation.

"It's not important," Lash said.

"I'm gonna call security-" Sonja said, reaching for the intercom.

"And then I'll have to cut off communication before they arrive and I won't get a chance to apologize," Lash said.

"Apologize?" Sonja asked. She stopped reaching for the button.

"Your dad is pretty important to you, huh?"

"I guess he is," Sonja said, blushing slightly. "You said you were going to-"

"Apologize, ya. Sheesh, give me a sec, I've never done this before."

Sonja chuckled. She looked at Lash's face on the monitor expectantly. Lash, perhaps for the first time in Sonja's experience, looked nervous; even vulnerable.

"So yeah, sorry and junk. Didn't mean to upset you like that."

Sonja narrowed her eyes. Lash was avoiding direct eye contact, and her hands were having difficulty finding solid purchase. If it was an act, it was a convincing one.

Sonja smiled hesitantly. "Apology accepted."

Lash immediately perked up. "So hey, watcha reading there?"

"What?" Sonja said, suddenly on edge. She tossed the book to the side so Lash couldn't get a look at it. "Nothing!"

"Oh my god, you're such a nerd," Lash said, shaking her head. Then the screen went dark.

"Goodnight, yourself, Lash," Sonja said, and turning out the lights.

A thought occurred to Sonja as she closed her eyes. _How was she seeing and hearing me through the television?_ But it was lost when she fell into a deep sleep.


End file.
